Two branches of Planned Parenthood in Missouri have formally asked for a judge's order to prevent the state from enforcing two abortion-related rules the organization is challenging in federal court as unconstitutional.

Planned Parenthood's attorneys filed Monday for an immediate preliminary injunction to block the state health department, Attorney General Chris Koster, Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson and prosecutors in Jasper, Boone and Jackson counties from enforcing two rules preventing the organization from offering abortions in Springfield, Joplin and Columbia. The St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic is the only one in the state that offers abortions.

One abortion rule at stake requires physicians who provide abortions to have admitting privileges and transfer agreements with a nearby hospital. The other mandates that clinics where abortions are provided have to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers.

Planned Parenthood has argued that the rules violate the organizations Fourteenth Amendment rights by creating an undue burden and says the restrictions preventing them from offering abortions in Springfield, Joplin, Columbia and Kansas City "irreparably injure Missouri women."

Similar rules in Texas were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in July.

In the Monday filing, Planned Parenthood argued that the injunction should be granted because it is likely to succeed, Planned Parenthood and its patients are suffering ongoing harm, the balance of harm favors Planned Parenthood and an injunction will serve the public interest.

Mary Kogut and Laura McQuade, the presidents and regional CEOs of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri and Planned Parenthood Great Plains, respectively, characterized the rules as more political than medical in nature in a joint statement.

"Every day, there are countless Missourians who cannot afford the burdensome travel expenses and extended time it takes to seek safe, legal abortion in this state," McQuade and Kogut said. "Partisan lawmakers, not doctors, have used regulations to set up countless barriers and punish women as part of an extreme ideological attack on a constitutional right established four decades ago. We are asking the court to use their authority to strike down unconstitutional, medically unnecessary laws so Missourians can swiftly access safe and legal abortion across the state at more health centers in their own communities."